The gorgeous folk rock album handcrafted by Phosphorescent’s Matthew Houck in his Brooklyn home is his most mature, enchanting and complete work yet — a stunningly clear-eyed look at heartbreak, addiction and depression.

Houck himself has a history with all of these. And it’s that history that’s spilled out all over the page. As he recently told Pitchfork, “There are lines that are so personal that I’m mortified that I’m even singing them.”

On Monday, with a mostly rough-around-the-edges five-piece backing him, Houck launched a 28-date tour of North America and Europe.

Gone was the meticulousness of “Muchacho.” It was replaced by a loose and quick 13-song set that found Houck more eager to perform requests from the audience than to remain on any thought-out set list. (There didn’t seem to be one to begin with.)

To be fair, we had been warned it might be a bumpy ride. “This is our first show and we have a new sound person,” Houck said at one point.

Other than his pen, one of Houck’s greatest gifts is his perfectly craggily voice, which cracks and scratches at each song, lending even more authenticity to his words. On this night, his vocals too often became buried underneath the band, which featured two keyboardists facing each other with Houck in the middle.

Houck, who can sometimes look like he just climbed out from the bottom of a Bloody Mary, looked good and was in fine spirits as he veered from song to song, compacting the night’s four “Muchacho” tunes to the beginning of the set, much to the delight of the sold out crowd in the 250-person Fishtown rock club.

Seeing Houck’s heartfelt meditations from “Muchacho” come alive in person was the thrill the audience came for. Unfortunately, only four of them made it into the set. But when they did, everyone was transfixed.

Ripples went through the crowd as Houck started the album’s lead single, “Song for Zula,” which opens with a Johnny Cash reference: “Some say love is a burning thing/That it makes a fiery ring/Oh but I know love as a fading thing
Just as fickle as a feather in a stream.”

Marked by its intimacy, the songs of “Muchacho” oddly did not deliver the most poignant or engaging moments of the night. Instead, it was watching Houck alone during the encore, electric guitar in hand, singing the words of Willie Nelson on “Reasons to Quit,” a song he covered on his countrified 2009 all-Nelson tribute, “To Willie.”

As the lyrics poured out, it seemed as if he was singing to one person: himself.

“Reasons to quit. I can’t afford the habit all the time,” he sang, slowing the song to a near stop, raising his hand in the air before continuing. “I need to be sober I need to write some new songs that will rhyme.”

While Houck’s march toward indie folk hero status has been a long one — he’s played to tiny crowds in Philadelphia over the years, including at the Kyhber in 2003 and Kung Fu Necktie in 2009 — Monday’s show seemed destined to be the payoff.

A sold out tour kick-off with desperate fans turned away at the door. A new batch of songs that transcend anything he’s ever done. And a boatload of positive buzz at his back.

Walking through Fishtown after a messy, set-closing extended version of “At Death, A Proclamation,” however, the evening felt more like a missed opportunity than a pinnacle.

Setlist
Terror In the Canyons (The Wounded Master)
The Quotidian Beasts
Song for Zula
Nothing Was Stolen (Love Me Foolishly)
A Picture of Our Torn Up Praise
Los Angeles
A New Anhedonia
Joe Tex, These Taming Blues
Wolves
Reasons To Quit (Willie Nelson)
Storms Never Last (Waylon Jennings)
Cocaine Lights
At Death, A Proclamation

About Ryan Cormier

News Journal features reporter Ryan Cormier throws everything pop culture into a blender and hits frappe. Check out his take on music, movies, celebrities and everything in between. It's what you need to know and a lot more stuff you really don't. Join him on Twitter and Facebook.

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